Talk:Small caps
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hand-lettered tombstones and coin designs are not typography, so I'm puzzled how one can say: "The text of a formal monumental inscription or the legend on a coin are often rendered in small caps" if there's no context in which these capitals can be declared small. They are simply "all caps". Hotlorp 14:05, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
- I think that there is enough tontext on a coin or tombstone. If the first letters in sentences and proper nouns are larger capitalas than the rest of the capitals then you have small caps. Jeltz talk 15:09, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
As the article mentions, small-caps fonts have a different aspect ratio from "normal" fonts' capital letters. Technically, anyone could call anything a "non-small-caps" font, and just claim that it was designed to look funny; but it makes more sense, typographically speaking, IMHO, to call any font that looks like small caps a small-caps font. For example, on the Lincoln penny, the phrases "IN GOD WE TRUST" and "E PLURIBUS UNUM" are set in small caps; the phrase "ONE CENT" is definitely not. ("Liberty" and "United States of America" seem to me like they could go either way.) --Quuxplusone 06:09, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] small cap font
On my system, the following sentence is not shown with small capitals:
- An elementary example is Don QUIXOTE de La Mancha. Similarly, they are used for those languages in which the surname comes first, such as the romanization MAO Zedong.
Isn't it bad to use <small> tags? For example:
- An elementary example is Don QUIXOTE de La Mancha. Similarly, they are used for those languages in which the surname comes first, such as the romanization MAO Zedong.
That works fine. - TAKASUGI Shinji 03:51, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
-
- An old version of this article had used <small>, but IMO the current version is better. It's correct, after all, and that's important in an encyclopedia. If you're not seeing small caps, then: (1) I think that's because you have an old browser; and (2) you should be seeing "Don QUIXOTE de La Mancha" (all caps, not small), which is a graceful degradation. I think the proportion of Wikipedia users who regularly use browsers that can display <small> but not <span style> is small enough that it's worth snubbing them in order to present a correct display to the users with up-to-date graphical browsers. (The Lynx users won't care either way.) --Quuxplusone 05:59, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
-
- If you're not seeing small caps, then: (1) I think that's because you have an old browser; and (2) you should be seeing "Don QUIXOTE de La Mancha" (all caps, not small), which is a graceful degradation. --Quuxplusone 01:00, 27 November 2006 (UTC), quoting from Quuxplusone 05:59, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Image
User:Remember the dot asks: Why don't we remove the image and just write
-
- An example of caps and small caps:
-
-
- "This text is formatted in small caps," said Jane Doe, who is, incidentally, the mayor of Anytown, USA.
-
? (Firefox users will at this point be shielding their gaze from the ugliness of that font. See a screenshot here.)
The simple answer: That block of HTML doesn't tell anyone what small caps looks like. Instead, it tells people what their Web browser thinks small caps looks like. Which is a completely different kettle of fish. Also, of course, the HTML "example" will be blatantly lying to Lynx or pre-CSS Netscape users, who will not be seeing small caps at all. The benefits of using a real image are two in number: It is authoritative, and it is widely accessible. Browser-specific CSS tags do not have those advantages.
Hope this helps. --Quuxplusone 04:29, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
